1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a technique for obtaining device information from a multi-function device.
2. Related Art
It is common practice to connect, in addition to a server computer and a client computer, a device such as a printer, a scanner, a facsimile, or a multi-function device (an example of a multi-function apparatus) having printer, scanner, and facsimile functions over a network. To reduce power consumption of these devices, sleep mode (also referred to as power-saving mode) is enabled for low power consumption when the devices have not been used for a predetermined period. Moreover, in order to monitor the amount of remaining consumables such as ink of each device, a monitoring server is installed to collect device information. However, when device information needs to be collected from a device in sleep mode, the sleep mode of the device is terminated, and power consumption increases for device information collection.
JP-A-2012-221193 describes a problem that when a device in sleep mode polled by a server, the sleep mode of the device is terminated, thereby causing unnecessary power consumption. In the device management system described in JP-A-2012-221193, the polling frequency of a device in sleep mode is reduced by setting a large polling interval for a device with a low frequency of use on the basis of the frequency of use of client devices logged on to a server.
However, when setting the polling interval based on the frequency of use of the device, whether or not the device is in sleep mode is unknown. Thus, the device may be in sleep mode when polled, and in this case, electric power is unnecessarily consumed.